Tag: retreading

On 1 October Hexpol completed the acquisition of 80 per cent of the shares of Italian compounder Mesgo Group from previous owner Francesco Caldara and co-owners. Hexpol describes Mesgo as “an industry leader in high performance elastomers as fluorocarbons and silicone”. In addition, Mesgo also specializes in conventional rubber compounds and thermoplastics. The major customer segments Mesgo focuses on are industry, consumer products, transportation and automotive. Mesgo Group reports annual turnover of around 100 million euros, with around 180 employees in six facilities.

Marangoni Tread Latino America has been accredited with INMETRO certification for its RingTread and Unitread pre-cure retreading materials production. Certification came after an independent assessment of Marangoni’s production plant in Brazil by Instituto Falcão Bauer, an accredited certification body in Brazil.

Superdoll OTR Retreading plant in Ndola, Zambia has been granted accreditation for OTR retreaded tyre distribution after going through all required documentation, company profile and records, according to Superdoll country manager Vick Nachson.

Retreading has always been a key part of Continental’s truck offer to achieve what it refers to as Lowest Overall Driving Costs (LODC), but this was further enhanced when the company announced the purchase of Bandvulc, (located in Lee Mill, Ivybridge) in the UK in July 2016. Bandvulc had been producing Continental’s hot retread ContiRe for over 20 years to support fleet business in the UK, so it was a natural progression to bring Bandvulc into the Conti family – but how has the Devon-based retailer been integrated?

The Section 301 Committee of the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) is holding hearings at the US International Trade Commission as part of a consultation process ahead of proposed import duties on certain Chinese produced tyres.

After less than two years in the job, Dino Maggioni has chosen to step down as chief executive officer of Marangoni S.p.A. and also leave all other positions he held within the group. According to a statement issued by the company, Maggioni’s departure follows a review of the “strategical directions that were assigned to Mr Dino Maggioni in the autumn of 2016.”

As part of the transaction that saw Zenises group purchase Vacu-Lug, Zenises Group has confirmed that it has also made “several large capital commitments in equipment and technology to ensure that Vacu-Lug becomes, over time, the most advanced independent retreader in Europe”.

Zenises has bought Grantham-based Vacu-Lug. The acquisition means Vacu-Lug remains the only significantly sized independent retreader in the UK. With an annual truck tyre retread capacity of 120,000, Zenises representatives described the firm as the largest independent retreader in Europe.

Many retreaders face an uphill battle just to maintain their position in European retreading markets. For those that do, a key factor in their success is – as we’ve previously commented in these pages – possession of a stable customer base. Yet loyalty is only earned through unflagging effort; maintaining close relations with customers is important, as is product quality and price in comparison with new tyres and the competition’s retreads. A fine example of how this works on a small, regional scale can be seen at W.H.H. Reifenerneuerung, a Hamburg, Germany-based retreader that’s been in the business for almost 40 years.

When news of Chinese truck tyre import tariffs breaking around us, Tyres & Accessories wanted to gauge the response of a leading premium tyremaker and retreader. With Goodyear having been amongst the few to officially comment on the matter since the announcement of tariffs at the start of May, we asked Gregory Boucharlat, director Fleet and Retread Commercial EU to bring us to speed on this as well as wider ongoing retreading trends.

It’s now more than two months since the European Union applied anti-dumping duties on a range of truck and bus tyres manufactured in China, and during this time Bridgestone has observed a “strong uplift in demand” within the UK retreading industry. With the market “showing signs of a significant upturn in fortunes,” the company behind the Bandag retreading brand believes a “continued investment in its range of products is beginning to reap dividends.”

Almost two years has passed since Continental Tyres bought Britain’s largest independent retreader Bandvulc tyres. While the integration has gone smoothly by all accounts, the shape of the market has changed significantly. First, we have to acknowledge that the acquisition has put both Continental’s new and retreaded products in a much stronger position than before. For example, the decision to offer Uniroyal through Bandvulc gave the retreader’s strong fleet business better access to Continental group new products, while at the same time significantly increasing Conti’s domestic retreading capabilities.

The rise of low-cost Chinese truck tyre imports in Europe has been well documented in the pages of various issues of our ongoing series of Retreading Special supplements. The resultant risks affecting the industry have led to pan-European awareness-raising and lobbying efforts at a European level. This in turn resulted in a European Commission (EC) investigating and on the impact of Chinese truck tyre imports on European retread sales, which began late last year. Then product registration began in February 2018. The latest news marks something of a victory for retreaders in their bid to revive the business as now we know that tariffs of between 52.85 euros and 82.17 euros per tyre are being applied to all truck and bus radials imported into Europe from China.

For Cima Impianti, last year ended with as many challenges as it began. “The market is in turmoil,” comments the Italian supplier of equipment for the retreading industry. Anti-dumping duties against imports of truck and bus tyres from China have been discussed and – at least on a preliminary basis – levied for a six-month period; a new regulation covering the 3PMSF symbol and its use on new and retreaded tyres has also come into force.